Just All In A Day` Emergency At O`hare

Their actions averted a disaster, but their day-after descriptions dwelled more on the textbook response than on the drama of evacuating a burning jetliner.

There were enough speeding fire engines and flashing lights, clanging bells and ear-piercing sirens to set the adrenalin rushing Tuesday at O`Hare International Airport.

But by Wednesday, officials related in their best Joe Friday, ``Just-the- facts, ma`am,`` monotones how the crews on United Flight 732, in the O`Hare control tower and at the three Chicago Fire Department crash stations just did their jobs.

``It was textbook,`` said David Lozeau, Chicago Fire Department deputy district chief.

``That was an example of our cooperation and working together and our proficiency at our jobs,`` said Leroy Shields, deputy Chicago aviation commissioner for safety and security.

At 1:16 p.m. Tuesday, a twin-engine Boeing 737 arriving from Omaha touched down on O`Hare Runway 27-Right, an east-west strip just north of the main parking lot. It rolled normally about 1,500 to 2,000 feet down the runway when it suddenly began listing to the left.

``The captain presumed that he had two flat tires because there was the vibration that is usually associated with a flat tire,`` said Mel Volz, United`s vice president for flight safety and industrial affairs.

The captain, whose name was not released pending the completion of an investigation, only had to move a finger to hit the microphone button in the control column to notify the tower, said Volz. ``He presumed he was running on the rim and wanted the fire department to come and look at it.``

To the Federal Aviation Administration controller who had cleared the airplane for landing, ``it looked like the gear was collapsed,`` said Kenneth Jackson, deputy tower chief. The controller then saw smoke and alerted his supervisor, who sits right next to him. The supervisor picked up the emergency hot line.

That simultaneously set off loud alarms at three fire department crash stations, the military fire station, the O`Hare police headquarters and the airport operations office.

All 45 Chicago firefighters and emergency medical technicians on duty in the three stations jumped into their 14 pieces of equipment to race to the scene. They were joined by four fire vehicles from the military side of O`Hare and other emergency workers. The runway was closed to all other airplane traffic.

The 737, after screeching another 3,000 feet, had ground to a stop about four-fifths of the way down the runway. Controllers in the tower guided the emergency vehicles to the plane by radio, clearing all other traffic from their path.

Aboard the plane, meanwhile, the pilot peered out his cockpit window and

``saw that he was sitting on the left engine,`` said Volz, and that the landing had broken it open and exposed the fuel controller, or carburetor, causing the kerosene fuel to spill.

Flames and heavy black smoke were beginning to erupt from the wing as the passengers lined up at the exits. The first emergency vehicles were also arriving from the closest fire station, located no more than two city blocks off the runway.

Escape ``chutes were on their way down as the apparatus was responding. The 109 passengers calmly evacuated the burning jetliner and there were only minor scrapes and bruises.

The firefighters could see the people starting to bail out,`` said Lozeau. Even before the first crash truck rolled to a stop, ``they opened their deck guns, which will shoot about 1,000 gallons per minute of foam about 200 to 250 feet away.``

The fire was put out in ``about 5 seconds,`` Lozeau said. He estimated that it would have taken only another minute for the fire to have become a serious disaster.

The whole emergency lasted about 2 minutes. ``Everything just absolutely worked the way it should have,`` said Volz.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the accident, said Wednesday that a pilot reported a ``shimmying`` motion by the craft on a runway earlier Tuesday.

``That may not mean anything, but it`s one thing that we are looking at,`` said Carl Dinwitty, chief of the safety board`s Chicago office.

A specialist in airplane structures from the board`s Washington headquarters was dispatched to help local investigators. They will examine the flight data recorder and maintenance records, interview the crew and try to determine whether a crosswind at the time of the landing may have contributed to the incident, Dinwitty said.

A metallurgical analysis of the broken parts in the failed landing gear probably will be done in the next few weeks. A final report could take a few months to complete, Dinwitty said.